In my most recent Horsham Club Championship game, played a couple of Tuesdays ago against Anthony Higgs, both players managed to surprise each other in the opening. Anthony chose the Gruenfeld, an opening that I have played against him a number of times but never the other way round. In response, I deviated from the 3 f3 he was surely expecting, and played instead a less common line, introduced by Polugayevsky. However, Anthony responded strongly against this, gaining a good position; I am not sure how I could have played better. Then I slipped up further, giving him a good position, but he wrong seized the opportunity to exchange queens, when the endgame proved surprisingly good for me, despite my extended pawns. In this endgame, I seem to have missed some decent chances of my own; in the end, the game ended up as a draw.
I give the game below with some notes.
Thanks for a good game James. Do you know what the theoretical recommendation is for Black on move 11? I thought that taking the a6-f1 diagonal was the most obvious way to restrict White and didn’t really consider much else, so it would be interesting to see what Polugaevsky/Berliner or others recommend.
Avrukh recommends the line 10 Rc1 cxd4 11 cxd4 Qa5+ 12 Kf1 Qa3! 13 Rc3 Qd6 14 h4 h5 15 f3 Rd8 16 Bd5 e5! etc. The approach with 12..Qa3 is the one that put a stop to high-level interest in the line.